Non-architect executives struggle to grasp dense technical diagrams of the reference architecture. What communication approach helps most?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Show leaders the map of what the city can do—issue licenses, bill utilities, keep people safe—and how architecture supports those outcomes. Capability talk travels farther than a thicket of protocol glyphs.
Full Explanation
Non-architect executives need architecture explained through capability and outcome views that connect structure to what the organization can deliver—faster permitting, safer data sharing, reliable emergency maps—not through maximal notation density. Increasing diagram detail until every protocol appears overwhelms the audience. Sharing only physical server inventories without outcomes misses why architecture matters. Avoiding architecture discussions with non-architects entirely abandons sponsorship. Exam communication skill: outcomes over glyph soup. Caveat: detailed technical diagrams remain necessary for engineering audiences; tailor views by stakeholder rather than deleting rigor. Operationally, prepare a one-page capability/outcome view of the reference architecture for leadership, link each major pattern to a civic outcome, and reserve protocol-level diagrams for technical design reviews. Rehearse the outcome view with a non-architect director before major decisions; if they cannot restate the civic benefit, simplify the narrative again. Keep a dual-pack of views in the architecture repo—one outcome brief for executives and one technical pack for engineers—and update them together after major pattern decisions.